N.C. Rep. Chris Sgro, D-Guilford, spoke to the crowd at Bicentennial Plaza and remarked that it has been a difficult week and a half for the LGBT community, making reference to the Orlando mass shooting.

Sgro is the only openly gay lawmaker in North Carolina. He is also executive director of Equality NC.

"We have just seen in Orlando what discrimination against the LGBT community can result in as the ultimate act of violence," Sgro said. "We need to be careful with our words and with our policy."

Protesters in downtown Raleigh on Wednesday.

Candace Cox, an advocate for the transgender community told the crowd, "I am not an it, I am not a thing, I am a Christian, black transgender woman."

The North Carolina Values Coalition urged state lawmakers to stand firm.

"Desmond Tutu was quoted as saying,'Good sense does not always lie with the loudest shouters, nor can we say that a large, unruly crowd is always the best arbiter of what is right.' " said NCVC Executive Director Tami Fitzgerald. "HB2 allows public facilities to offer common sense solutions and encourages private businesses to create the best internal policies to accommodate their employees, customers and shareholders, while at the same time protecting the privacy and safety of all North Carolinians, not just some. We encourage the legislators to continue to stand firmly behind HB2."

HB2 was designed to block a Charlotte non-discrimination ordinance, part of which allowed transgender people to use bathrooms and locker rooms of the gender they identify with.

The state law requires people to use the restroom according to their biological sex listed on their birth certificate in government buildings, schools, and universities. The law also excludes lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people from anti-discrimination protections and blocks municipalities from adopting their own anti-discrimination and living wage rules.